And this is one of the topics that came up when the New York City panel for Meet, Plan, Go! got together to brainstorm what we would discuss at our recent event. We wanted to touch on “Why don’t more people take career breaks?” and in our encounters one of those reasons is career related.

So what did our panel have to say about career fears?

Brook Silva-Braga (A Map for Saturday) – More Broadly Educated
First off, there WILL be job openings when you come home and your trip can certainly be positioned as a resume builder (which may or may not be BS) but without doubt the trip will make you a more broadly educated person, someone who can hold an intelligent conversation on more topics. Your geography will be better, your understanding of foreign markets will improve, your ability to relate to people of diverse backgrounds will be developed. In short, you will be a better, more attractive employee in virtually any field.

Jennifer Baggett (The Lost Girls) – Be Strategic
Although New Yorkers tend to have a bit overachieving/workaholic tendencies, many had traveled before or taken huge risks in their life (including moving to the city in the first place), so there was a certain respect level of my decision among my work peers – and a lot of friendly jealousy as most of them fantasized about doing the same thing.

Of course even though my bosses were really supportive (they even said they’d hold my job if I came back after only 3 months and would at least help me look for work if I stayed gone the full year), I still worried that I might be committing career suicide. But I think there were two main factors that ensured that didn’t happen: First, I was strategic about when I chose to leave. I had been in the TV industry long enough to have laid a solid foundation for a successful career/had established a good reputation in the industry and was at a position level where it made it easier to take a bit of time off. And second, I was able to do things on the road that ended up being marketable skills/filled the travel gap on my resume (having an award-winning travel blog, writing articles for magazines, volunteering, etc…).

Michael Bontempi (Briefcase to Backpack) – Return with Confidence
Worrying is not how I would categorize the feeling upon my return. If anything, I was clearer about the path I wanted to take, the role I was looking for and the type of companies I wanted to work for.  My head was clearer which made me more confident in my ability to explain my work experience and qualifications.

Also, for me it depends how you define the word career. For this question I would ask, what is more worrisome – the person who invests time in themselves trying to find the right career, or the person who looks back on their past career and says ” You know what I always wanted to do or be?”

Sadly I know a lot more people in the latter category.

Sherry Ott (OttsWorld) – Real Life MBA
I was in a career that I wasn’t in love with, but timing and good luck put me on the path to IT back when I was 22.  Fourteen years of not loving it, but loving the salary, and climbing the ladder. Then I realized I hated the ladder; and it all changed.

I left my career with no plan of what I would do when I came back, just hoping it all would organically come to me. After breaking free from the confines of the cube and corporate mentality, I was able to finally think, be creative, and open my eyes to different ways of making a living.  Everyone gets their MBA, but I think a hands-on global experience can set you apart from others in the workforce. I’ve NEVER met a person who has taken a career break to travel and not been able to find a job upon returning…NEVER. The great thing about world travel is that you learn how to be flexible, scrappy, patient, and creative…all of this is needed to find a job, it’s not easy…but neither is traveling in the Gobi Desert by camel cart.

Brian Peters (No Debt World Travel) – Don’t Burn Bridges
I was open to anything that would happen to me career-wise. I will say never, ever burn bridges. The same people you work with now will be your best points of contact if you decide to come home and look for work. If they like you and trust you, they will keep their eyes and ears open. Most jobs are found through connections and word of mouth. This is even more the case if you’ve been out the country for an extended period of time.

Marie Elena Martinez (Marie’s World) – Similar Field, Different Career
[Similar to Brian Peters – Don’t Burn Bridges] It was through a maintenance of my PR contacts and book world contacts that I’m back in media, though on the creative side.  All of my old colleagues have helped me launch a writing career. I’m indebted to them and their support.

Michaela Potter (Briefcase to Backpack) – Career Transition
I’ve planned my career breaks around times when I was ready to change or move onto a new career. So I used the break in between to travel. During my first break in 2001, I already had a consulting gig lined up and they knew that I would be traveling for three months when they offered me the job. In 2006, I was ready to go back to the non-profit world, but first volunteered in Peru for that summer. That experience led me to get a job in the international volunteer industry. And after our break in 2007, I decided to finally pursue a freelance career.

What are your career fears?

As summer rapidly comes to a close, I am reminded that it was four years ago now that I quit my full time job and, in essence, my full-time career in television. Since university, I’d worked in broadcast television, starting after my sophomore year with my first internships, including one at “Late Night with David Letterman.” I graduated college and worked full time ever since, at three different television stations – directing, editing, writing and producing. I built a ‘career.’ I was stable and secure. I was saving my pennies and hard earned money…for ‘something.’ I had a bi-weekly direct deposit check, a really good health insurance package, a retirement plan that I funded generously, and some stock shares in my parent company: Disney.

Then in the summer of 2006, I quit. I gave it all up. And I don’t regret it one bit.

Networking on the Road
I didn’t know what I would do when I ‘returned.’ I wasn’t sure, but I was open to new things and willing to just see what happened. I suppose I’ve always been lucky to feel confident in my resourcefulness and abilities and that I would always find ‘something.’ So I really didn’t worry all that much. I remember back in college learning about something called “networking.” Yuck. It seemed so phony or uncomfortable. Now networking is all I do. But I don’t think of it like that. I love talking to people – learning what they do and how they got there. When I traveled, that’s all I did – meet people and ‘network’ in a sense, which landed me random opportunities from working for Turkey’s largest media conglomerate, the Dogan Group, (I just proofread some presentations, but it was still amazing to just ‘fall’ into that from chatting with people) to doing research at the University of Cologne (through a friend) to landing a year-long freelance gig (which basically funded all my travels from then on, allowing me to break even) doing publicity for an English Immersion program based in Madrid.

Many people asked me, “What about the economy?”

Bottom line, I make much less than I did previously, but it frankly doesn’t matter and hasn’t changed my quality of life at all.

I just thought there couldn’t be a better time for me to be out traveling. In a way, when I returned was perfect because the economy was picking up a bit and there were more jobs available. Don’t get me wrong, I applied for dozens of freelance gigs in New York and Chicago and rarely heard back if at all. But of course, there is that persistence gene I do seem to possess which helps a lot too.

For the most part, I knew these three or so years away would enrich my resume, not subtract from it. I’d heard this before from others and believe wholeheartedly that it is true. The skills I learned – negotiating, planning, organizing, being independent, etc., would absolutely help me in work and life in general.

Finding Work Back Home
So now that I am back – what am I doing? I find this question hard to answer succinctly. While I was gone, I built a blog and a brand and through it have naturally made so many contacts and connections, from which random leads and jobs have come. So before I even returned I was already building a new ‘career.’ I was lucky to already have a background as a writer and photographer, so while my blog was a way to document things and entertain my readers, it also acted as a roadmap or idea generator for larger articles that I could pitch to newspapers, magazines, and other websites.

I managed to get travel articles published in the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, and the Dallas Morning News among others. I was very fortunate to have a few photo essays bought by Smithsonian Online. And then there were the opportunities that just ‘fell in my lap’ and came to me because someone found my blog. The editor on Encyclopedia Britannica online contacted me to be a weekly travel blogger for them and they also ended up buying about 100 of my photographs. An editor and publisher of English textbooks in Germany found my blog and also contacted me to freelance for them throughout the year writing travel ‘columns’ for their textbooks. And of course, now the blog itself makes a modest amount of money from advertising.

But, while this was all enough to fund more travel, it was not sufficient to pay for rent or bills. Well, it may have been sufficient, but was too ‘risky’ for me. I didn’t think I could handle worrying each month about paying my rent. So I was very lucky to go back to television producing and found a perfect freelance gig a few days a week for WGN-TV’s new food show, Chicago’s Best. I love food. And I love Chicago. And I had been doing similar work at my former job, so it was a no brainer.

Bottom line, I make much less than I did previously, but it frankly doesn’t matter and hasn’t changed my quality of life at all. I make enough. I have freedom to explore new possibilities and also the freedom to still travel. I seem to be cobbling together a new career and adding more titles to my business card.

It could literally read:
Writer, Producer, Photographer, Editor, Blogger, Publicist, Travel Consultant, Video Consultant, World Traveler

I’m happy to report that the term ‘Career Break’ seems to be popping up all over these days! I hope that has a little to do with our upcoming Meet, Plan, Go! event. Regardless of why – we are happy to see people talking, writing, and reporting about them. However, this month’s career break news seems to be a mixed bag of positive and negative! What is a career breaker to believe?!

Let’s start with the disturbing headlines. I woke up and saw this headline in my inbox one day:

Women told to forget about babies if they want to scale career heights
Headhunters’ survey suggests that taking even a few months’ career break for the sake of children will harm prospects of winning a top executive job.
- That’s the message from a new survey, conducted by InterExec, which showed that 53% of those questioned said that women who want a big business post should give up all thoughts of maternity leave – or what they prefer to call a “career break”.

Sure – I know they are talking about a maternity leave career break as opposed to a sabbatical/travel career break – but they are both breaks in your career. If motherhood isn’t an acceptable reason to take a break in your career then it’s going to be darn hard to sell breaking from your career to travel the world. Therefore I put this in the category of disturbing.

However as you consider taking a career break – consider the other point of view – the progressive point of view. Think about how a career break can actually build your skills to find an even better career upon returning. Regardless of why you put your career on pause, the benefits are still the same – you get some time to step away from the rat race and replenish.

Time away from your day to day work and desk duties is necessary. Just take this excerpt from an article about how time away from your cube is the cure for creative blocks.

As Jonah Lehrer writes in a recent Guardian piece, “Several new science papers suggest that getting away – and it doesn’t even matter where you’re going – is an essential habit of effective thinking.” Certainly, we’ve all experienced the feeling that work concerns are just less important the farther away we get from the office. Now there’s proof to back up the classic “out of sight, out of mind” expression.

The article talks about how getting away is essential for effective thinking. But adds more advantages to time away from your cubicle.

“Going even further, another study sparked by the productivity of expats like Nabokov, Hemingway, Yeats, Picasso, Gaugin, and Handel showed that not just traveling but living abroad for an extended period of time can improve our capacities for problem solving and creative thinking.”

Last I checked, employers are looking for great problem solvers and creative thinkers! So don’t hesitate to talk about these enhanced skills in your interview. You were actually expanding your skillsets when you were traveling or living abroad. Believe it. Promote it.

The real key to re-entry back into the workforce is BELIEVING that a career break is a positive career enhancing experience. If you don’t believe that yourself, then you’ll be eaten alive in your interview.

So I challenge you to forget about the first article about maternity ‘career breaks’ and focus on this one…the one that provides you the fuel for your interviews!

Here’s more ammo for your interview as you re-enter the workforce:

“It turns out that being exposed to cultures that function differently from our own – from language to social customs to public transport – awakens the brain, alerting it to a much broader range of possibilities for being, living, and making.”

So while most people are sitting at their cube year after year turning their brains to corporate mush, you can actually awaken yours by traveling!

What other skills do you think you gain from taking a career break and traveling?  Please share them with us!

For many career breakers, it would be a dream to continue to travel. But most do return to work, whether it’s a new career or back to the briefcase. Mario Schulzke, Creator of CareerSparx, shares with us “How to Make Your Travels Part of Your Career Brand”.

Your career brand is much more than the sum of your past work experience.  It is the aggregate of both who you are as an individual and why someone would want to work with you.  It is about taking various life experiences and showing how they have—or will—contribute to your career.

If you are contemplating taking some time off to travel or if you are returning to work from extended travel, be confident that it likely did not or will not hinder your long-term career goals.

Wherever travel comes into your life, it is there for a purpose; it satisfies a need and brings clarity to our often-convoluted worlds.  You experience new things, learn about new cultures and often return with a wisdom that informs how you see the world.

When it comes time to return to the workplace, you can communicate the value of your travel experience as part of your career brand.  Here’s how:

Understand how your travels contribute to who you are.
This may take some careful retrospection unless you keep a blog or journal—which is a great idea that I go into more detail about below—but it is important to understand what you learned and experienced while traveling.  Reflect on your time abroad and the qualities you developed as a result of your experiences.  Take the time to write this down and contribute to the list as more things come to mind.

Here are some questions for thought:

• What spurred my travel ambitions in the first place?
• What was the most memorable experience and why?
• What were my most important revelations?
• Did I think back on my life before travel in any particular way?  Was there anything negative I hoped to change?

Translate these experiences and qualities to work-related skills.
Now that you understand the positive ways in which travel affected your life, you need to communicate how this will help you professionally.  Again, write this down, using concrete examples from your travel to tell a story and make a point.  You can weave this information into your resume or use it during interviews.  Here are some questions to get started:

• Have my life-long goals changed? Have my career goals changed? How?
• What qualities have I strengthened that would make me an effective team player?
• What have I learned from my interactions with strangers around the world that will help me be a better leader?

Demonstrate a better understanding of who you are and what you want.
After traveling, you will be returning with a much better idea of the type of job and workplace that is right for you.  This brings confidence to future employers because if you truly know what you want, what you can provide and how you fit into their company, you will be a reliable and motivated part of their team.  Communicate this.

Document your travels and experiences.
Listen, the Web is here to stay and it’s going to affect your professional career in some sort of way.  An interesting blog, for example, is something that you can do to set you apart from other job applicants.  Usually the hardest challenge about creating a blog is having something worthy to write about.  Well, guess what?  Unless your travels consisted of being holed up in a hotel room in Cincinnati, I bet you have some interesting stories to tell.  So, tell them.

Check out WordPress.com, Tumblr.com or Posterous.com for easy ways to set up your own blog.

Wherever your career brand manifests itself—through a blog, resume, cover letter or your persona—know that your travel experience can be as valuable to a potential employer as it is to you.

ABOUT MARIO
Mario Schulzke was born and raised in Germany, and lived in France, Spain and England before coming to the U.S. as a high school exchange student.  He has traveled across China and has backpacked many of America’s national parks.  He is the creator of CareerSparx.com, an online course that teaches recent graduates how to start their careers.  For more information, download their free 61-page guide on how to start your career or check out the CareerSparx blog.

Barbara Pagano of YourSABBATICAL answers the question:

I’ve realized I no longer want to go back to my old career. In a market with high unemployment, how can I make myself noticed or create opportunities in a new field or industry?

Congratulations on being a risk-taker! Staying in a career that no longer fits your needs can be one of the most debilitating moves away from future happiness. Plus it robs your potential. Here are three ideas to break into a new field or industry during a sabbatical, even in these trying times:

1. Immerse yourself in the industry. While you might not have experience in this new field, you can start building a firm base of knowledge by connecting with someone who’s successful in the industry and give you information such as the trade magazines to read, the well-respected associations that lead the way, and the best internet resources where you can learn what’s going on. Perhaps there’s a book and a couple of industry gurus to become acquainted with, too. Read, research, and attend association events. Learn the industry jargon, current challenges, and trends to make your entrance a stunner.

2. Take the “career journey” approach. Successful business people who are asked for “10 minutes” by someone (even a stranger) who is “on a journey to discover whether this is a career for me” often say “yes.” Honor their time by keeping to the time frame and asking smart questions. You’ll have the opportunity to not only gather valuable information but also to make a connection with someone at the top of the field. And who knows, maybe that person knows of a job or company that’s a good fit for you.

3. Utilize your present skills. An internship or volunteer opportunity to showcase your present skills allows you to show enthusiasm for learning about a new industry. Companies in the industry you are pursuing, particularly if they are growing and entrepreneurial, might be open to offering an internship to you, especially if you can help them solve a pressing challenge or obtain new ideas. Keep your ears open for opportunities at industry networking events where you can say, “I can help you with that.”

While skills and experience are important as you transition to a new industry or career, always remember that people are hired for their enthusiasm and passion, too. And if you use your sabbatical to research the industry or experience an internship, be sure to leverage that on your resume. Good luck!

Have a career related question? Join our LinkedIn Group and post it in the “Ask a Coach” discussion.

THINGS TO AVOID:

• Getting sucked in to watching too much TV. For about 3 years I barely watched TV. I did not miss it at all. It can be enjoyable at times, but there are so many better things we can be doing.
• Feeling the ‘need’ to follow too much media about senseless issues (ie Jon & Kate? Who are these people and why do I care?). Being aware of world events and news is good; surmising if Jennifer and Brad will ever get back together is ridiculous.
• Eating too much – We eat so much more in this country than we need to AND so much of that is barely real food. Strive to continue to eat as fresh and local as when you were traveling.
• I went for years without a cell phone. I still sometimes forget mine at home now and ONLY have a prepaid phone – no bill, no contracts, just pay-as-you-go and I like it. I don’t NEED to chat endlessly on the phone just because everyone around me is. I don’t want or need to be reachable 24/7.

THINGS TO DO:

• Stay in touch with new friends from travels. With email and Facebook this is so easy and fun.
• Keep the ‘learning’ going…if you loved salsa dancing in Latin America – find a salsa class at home. Miss the tasty spring rolls in Vietnam? Seek out a cooking class. Have an international dinner party. Organize a monthly outing to a different ethnic restaurant. If you miss the challenge of chatting with locals in another language…take a language class. Go to museums, check local magazines and newspapers for other cultural meeting and groups.
• Meet new friends back home. In larger cities there are expat groups or other travel groups (meetup.com and Couchsurfing.com) with which you can get together for a drink or coffee with like-minded people.
• Couchsurfing – Sign up to be a host. You can meet and show others from abroad around your town. Return the favor for the hospitality you received while traveling.
• Volunteer with travelers/tourists: Contact your local tourism department to see what’s going on. Free services like Chicago Greeter and Big Apple Greeter are always looking for volunteers to give visitors a taste of your city from a local’s perspective.
• Volunteer at your local Youth Hostel.
• Let yourself feel sad or different. It’s okay. Time will ease the sadness, but you don’t want to forget.
• Reminisce – look at your photos, think about your trip, organize your blog and your photos.
• Share – You’ve learned so much while traveling. Hold on to this. Share it with others. Maybe your experiences will teach and/or inspire others to get out and see the world…or, maybe not to travel, but just to be more aware of the world around them.
• FINAL POINT: start planning you next trip!

Hi, we’re Jorrit and Nicky. Today we produce and sell classic, sustainable travel bags and outdoor gear but it was a long journey to get here. Here’s our story of how we went from backpack to briefcase, then back to travelling, and finally re-designed our lives to bring our work and our love of adventure together.

We hope that our story will inspire you to take some time out to travel – and to draw on your travels to reinvigorate your life on returning to the workplace. Having married and later set up our own business as a result of travelling, we passionately believe in mixing the worlds of work and adventure!

OUR FIRST TRAVEL ADVENTURE

Jorrit - In Europe, many teenagers go travelling in a Gap Year between school and university. However, despite the fact that we’re both European, that actually wasn’t our story. After our school studies, neither of us took the option of a traditional Gap Year. Instead, we headed to university and, on completing our degrees, immediately entered the world via work and military service. Nicky joined the management programme of United Distillers, part of the Guinness Group, while I did military service in Holland (my homeland) as an officer in the Strategy Department. And it was for very different reasons that we each ended up travelling after that.

Nicky – For me, I came to a point where I felt that I needed to review my career plans. I’d been working for United Distillers for a couple of years. But, within a short space of time, my Grandfather died, my Dad fell ill, a four-year relationship ended, and I found myself in two car crashes. Chatting with a girlfriend at work, I decided to plan to head to South America for a year and see where to go from there. My key motivations were:

• Realising that life can be short and alter quickly – it’s important to grab chances while we can.
• To feel the freedom of making my own choices day by day.
• To experience the excitement of exploring unknown countries.
• To test my ability to deal with whatever happened while travelling and hopefully grow in confidence.

Jorrit - My reasons for travelling were rather different. Having completed my military service, I wanted to travel and end up in Australia. My plan was to apply for residency there. I’d studied in Queensland and fallen in love with the country – its landscape, weather and lifestyle. Now I wanted to return to Australia while whetting my taste for adventure on the way. My plan was to take a circuitous route via South America, North America and Asia before ending up in Oz again. To that end, I worked as a hotel porter by night and a taxi driver by day to fund the trip. And then I bought my one-way ticket.

Nicky - I left work in Britain in December 1992 and flew to Venezuela with two girlfriends. We spent Christmas in Caracas where there had just been a military coup. Then we started travelling by road, opting for air in the more dangerous areas of Colombia. In some ways, we were taking real risks but we didn’t want to opt for an organised trip. We wanted to be self-sufficient and plan our own route.

This is fine in principle but tricky when all three people prove to have different needs and wishes! After a month together, we decided to go our separate ways and I set off alone for the small village of Vilcabamba in Ecuador – a town with a reputation for the longevity of its inhabitants. There I met my future husband, Jorrit.

Jorrit – I’d been travelling in Ecuador with an English woman and Australian guy. When I met Nicky in Vilcabamba and love struck, we carried on travelling as a group of four. Before we knew it, we’d found our way through South America, Asia and North America, spending almost two years away from home and having the experience of a lifetime.

BACK TO WORK

Jorrit and Nicky – We were both concerned when we returned from travelling to re-enter the job market. Would we be viewed as a pair of freeloaders? Far from it. We only received positive feedback from employers. This is what we realised as we digested the impact of our two years of travel. A backpacking trip can:

• Build your confidence in dealing with unexpected events.
• Increase your communication skills and ability to create speedy rapport with people.
• Teach you how to assess people and circumstances very quickly.
• Broaden your perspective of life, giving you a new sense of proportion. Often it’s the people who have very little in terms of possessions who prove to be the richest in their welcome, wisdom, generosity and insight.

On the flip side, the bug for travel and freedom never leaves you! Today, we still hanker for travel and adventure at times. You can sense this when you find yourself comparing prices for cars, sofas and presents with the air fares that you could buy for flights to dreamed-of destinations!

HITTING THE ROAD AGAIN

Nicky - It was work-life stress which eventually sent us travelling again, this time in a different style as we now had an eight-year old daughter, Kiah. Jorrit had been working as a Managing Director of Kangol, based in West Cumbria, but travelling constantly to New York, Europe and Asia. At the height of his work, he could be away two to three weeks every month. Living in a remote rural community, we found family life suffering because of Jorrit’s work, exciting and stimulating though it was.

And when my Dad was diagnosed with cancer, it was another reality check. We decided to commit to making changes in our lives to regain a healthier work-life balance.

Jorrit – Around my fortieth birthday, as a result of the stresses that Nicky has outlined, I left my job and took a year out to review where I wanted to go next. A Dutch uncle gave me some wise words which persistently echoed in my ears – “The first forty years are about quantity, the second forty are about quality”. I started to work out the real values that were important to me and my family. I walked in the fells of the Lake District, learned to kite surf, and started travelling again with Nicky and Kiah.

This time we stayed closer to home, swapping Great Britain for South America and Asia, and ditching backpacking for a camper van with wetsuits and boogie boards on the roof. We toured Britain, living simply as we were wage-less but feeling happier and more fulfilled than we had for ages. Gradually, we decided that it was time to take a bold step – to bring the fruits of our travels and our working life together and establish our own business.

Three elements went into the mix of our thinking:

• A desire to inspire people to make simple decisions that can improve the way that we all live and protect the planet’s resources at the same time.
• My lifelong passion for bags, vintage items and travel memorabilia.
• Reading a great book on an insurance clerk turned adventurer, Millican Dalton, who lived wild in the Lake District in the early twentieth-century, pioneering a life of simplicity and adventure.

With these three thoughts in mind, we decided to launch our own bag brand, naming it Millican after local legend, Millican Dalton.

JOINING OUR WORK AND OUR TRAVELS

Jorrit and Nicky - Of course, after travelling for a year without a salary, we had little in the way of a lump sum to start a business. However, inspired by our travels, we set off with an idea and a business plan and were lucky enough to find local investors who loved the concept of Millican. They wanted to support a grass-roots business inspired by and created in the heart of Lake District. With a strong vision and financial support, Millican the company was born.

Today, the biggest challenge for us now that our business is up and running is constantly reminding ourselves of the really important elements in our lives. And taking time to enjoy them and each other. There is always work to be done, especially when it’s based in your home. But work-life balance was the prime motivation for starting the business. We would be untrue to ourselves if we let that balance slide.

For us, it’s about taking the lessons and wisdom we’ve gained from our travels and feeding that back into our everyday lives. Why set up a sustainable business if it isn’t sustainable for us as a family? The choices aren’t always easy and sometimes we make mistakes. But it feels like a great adventure to be on – and we’re learning and growing, not stagnating.

So, go on – take time out if you need to review your life. Distance, travel and new variety brings invaluable perspective. And there is always life on your return, whatever your fears. In our experience, life after travelling has proved to be far better than the life we had before.

Check out Millican’s beautiful products at www.homeofmillican.com

And be sure to sign up for their newsletter.

If you are anything like us (Michael, Michaela, and Sherry), you probably fall into one of these categories:

• You want to return to the Briefcase, but on a different career track
• You want to utilize your skills and talents to pursue freelance work
• You want to pick up the Backpack again, never to return to corporate

BACK TO THE BRIEFCASE
You had an incredible around-the-world experience but are ready to re-enter the corporate world. Michael always knew he’d return to corporate, and used his career break to refocus on what his career goals were. These were some of the resources he utilized to get a job upon his return:

Job Boards:

• Monster
• Yahoo Careers
• The Ladders – Operations Manager and Executive Positions

Executive Search Firms:

• Cook Associates
• Spencer Stuart

Networking:

And don’t underestimate the power of your network. Keep in touch with your former colleagues and mentors during your travels and they can be extremely useful for opening up doors for you upon your return. LinkedIn makes this easier to do than ever.

And if you wish to seek employment from a firm that embraces the sabbatical mindset, YourSabbatical offers a comprehensive list of companies that do so.

FREELANCING
You can segue your old career skills, and even some new ones you picked up as a travel blogger and photographer, into the freelance world.

I’ve always used my creative skills in the various jobs I had. So after my career break travels with Michael, I decided to finally pursue my dream of becoming a freelancer. I utilized my contacts at previous jobs to obtain work and have been building clients by word-of-mouth efforts for my business, Wanderlust Productions.

Some resources that I also use to help network, improve my skill set, and keep me motivated include:

• MediaBistro – Offers jobs, classes, a community and news for media professionals
• FreelanceSwitch – A community of freelance professionals from around the world, offering advice, resources, and a job board
• Freelance Radio – Hosted by freelancers from a wide range of backgrounds in the media field, including a writer, graphic designer, and web developer

And here are some other sources you may find useful:

• All Freelance – Directory of Freelance Job Boards, Resources & Articles
• How Design – Job search advice & job board, insight on your resume & portfolio, and interviewing tips for creative professionals

PICK UP THE BACKPACK AGAIN
You’ve been won over by backpacking and never want to settle down in the foreseeable future.

This is what Sherry felt like after her original 16-month career break. Here is how she obtained her CELTA certificate and ended up teaching English in Vietnam:

CELTA Certificate – ESL Jobs

• Teaching House – The largest CELTA center in the USA with locations in New York, Boston, Miami and San Diego
• Teaching House Job Board - Job board for teaching English in the US and abroad
• Transitions Abroad Teaching English Abroad
  Overseas Programs, Jobs, Articles and Resources

And for over 30 years, Transistions Abroad has been a useful and comprehensive resource for Work Abroad, Study Abroad, Cultural Travel Overseas, and International Living.Living and Working Abroad.

One of the things you’ll have to get used to, however, is a much smaller paycheck. But Sherry has been able to transition from a six-figure salary to making just $18,000 a year. And here is a great article by Nora Dunn, a self-professed Professional Hobo, on how to travel full-time for $14,000 per year.

NON-PROFIT WORK
Here’s a whole other category that may apply to you. During your career break travels you may have had the opportunity to do some volunteer work. Maybe you were inspired enough and wish to re-focus your career path in the non-profit sector?

I’ve discussed Idealist as a great place to find volunteer opportunities abroad, but it is also a great career and job resource.

And keep in mind, it may be tough to find work right away, so while you continue your search, it may be worth doing some volunteer work to fill your time. And you never know – it could lead to a job!

NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK
What ever career path you end up back on, don’t forget the importance of networking. In addition to staying in touch with your previous colleagues and associates, making new contacts is invaluable to your job goals. Find forums and events that speak to your aspirations and work it. A great site to find such opportunities is Meetup.

Do you have any job success stories or advice to give? Please share!

Regardless, I did go back to the US, but I decided to change my ‘reality’ – I didn’t go back to what I was doing. How could I? I had vastly changed in those 16 months. That made my next steps rather difficult because the only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to go back to working for a large corporation in the US.

Once you’ve taken a career break, there are a number of different directions you can take when you arrive back in your home country. You can plug back into your old life and your old job or find a new job within your old industry. You can go back to work, but in a different industry. Or finally, you can just not go back to work, but change your whole direction into something else. Just remember, anything is possible!

If you decide to go back to the working world, one of the first things you need to do is update your resume. But what do you say that you’ve been doing for the last year? Many people are worried about how to explain the gap that your career break has caused in your work experience. However, if you sit down and really consider it, you’ll realize you have actually been building your skill-sets while traveling; skill-sets that every employer looks for when hiring.

When Michael came back from his four-month career break and started job hunting, he was often contacted by recruiters who found his resume posted online. The recruiters were impressed by his work experience but worried about the ‘gap’ on his resume and thought it would be a disadvantage when being compared with other candidates. However, when he interviewed with companies, he found it to be quite the opposite. Employers were intrigued and impressed by his break and what experience he gained from it. The recruiters were mainly worried about making a commission off of the “hire”.

Here are some ideas on how to ‘sell yourself’ and your experiences from your career break. Please feel free to join in the conversation and add more ideas via the comments at the end of this post.

International Experience
The World Is Flat: We are truly a global economy. This has been the ‘headlines’ now for the last 5 years. Now YOU have international experience to add to your resume. I was out of the country for a year and a half; I wasn’t working or living in a different country, but I might as well have been. I stayed in some regions (Asia for instance) for several months and was able to experience various aspects of many different cultures – from business and family interactions to religion and history. You can’t help but become accustomed to the way people operate.

This is better than simply traveling to Tokyo for a business meeting; instead you’ve actually been immersed. Don’t be afraid to tout this international experience that you’ve gained. Remember, most people in America still don’t have passports! You are miles ahead of them in the global economy job hunt.

And it won’t go unnoticed with your employer. When Michael’s new job required him to travel to India, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines within a 10-day period, he was ready to live out of a backpack again. With him was a colleague who had accompanied others on this trip several times before. She was greatly impressed with how Michael was willing to “go with the flow” during a very hectic schedule and how open he was to getting to know his counterparts in those countries. Most others would go in, do the work, and return to the hotel. Despite jetlag and long days, Michael understood the importance of building relationships within those cultures. It’s not just about work, work, work like in the US.

And as an added bonus, he got to visit with orphaned elephants in Sri Lanka – a cultural trip that all others had by-passed. This only helped to create a greater bond with his colleagues.

Risk Taker
Many employers want to see that you are able to take smart risks. The very core of what you just did – leave your job and take a career break – is the definition of a smart risk. It is certainly risky to leave stability in the hopes of gaining more. It’s even harder when you don’t have a road map of people telling you what steps to take and how to do it.

However, you have just accomplished this; you took a risk and it paid off. You are in a better place now. You have a greater global understanding of the world, you have refreshed your mind/body/spirit, and you have been able to step away from the corporate world to get a new perspective. All of this has left you a more well-rounded, and intelligent person.

So many people simply follow the road more traveled. They follow ‘rules’. They do what people tell them to do based on fear of the unknown or being different. However, you challenge those ‘rules’. You believe that retirement shouldn’t wait until you are 65 years old, vacations don’t have to simply be two weeks. Instead you want to accomplish some of these things while you are young, fit, and have time; so you take the risk. It is very clear to me that people who take career breaks in America are risk takers by definition. Remember, great things are not discovered or developed by people who simply do what every other person is doing.

Find Creative Solutions to Difficult Problems
Employers are always trying to find people that can think ‘outside of the box’. Companies today do not need ‘yes men’ – they want people who can think quickly on their feet and come up with creative, effective solutions. While on the road I experienced this challenge practically daily. When you are on your own in a foreign country and can’t speak or read the language, and you don’t have a map, you need to be able to think on your feet.

There were many times when I had to quickly switch from plan ‘A’ to plan ‘C’. Whether it was the time when my flight to Cairo was cancelled for some unknown reason and I was taken to a hotel for two days with no information about my luggage or my cancelled flight; or when the bus broke down in the middle of Morocco stranding me in the hot desert; or when I realized that the taxi driver had no idea how to find my hotel; or when you walk into a coffee shop and find that you have broken a cultural custom because you are the only female there; or you book the ‘luxury tourist bus’ to find out that you are really traveling in a 13 passenger van with 21 people crammed inside it – you need to be able to assess the situation and come up with a plan of action to move forward.

International travel requires you to be flexible, creative, and most of all, patient. When employers ask for examples of when you have been in a challenging situation and creatively come up with a solution, have some travel stories ready to tell. Of course, remember to be succinct and apply them back to the business world; but don’t be afraid to talk about your long-term travel experiences. If you have these personal qualities in your real life, then you will surely bring them with you to the workplace.

You’re Hired
In my past career, I did a lot of hiring. I can tell you that if I found people with these soft skills that could be articulate about them, I would have been thrilled! More often than not, I had people that had very little exposure to the world outside their home state. Go ahead and embrace your new skill-sets and don’t be afraid to sell them in your next interview.

We’d love to hear from you:

Do you have some great examples of turning your career break into a resume winner? Let us know! Share your career break experiences here.